Posse Incitatus

The "Cold Civil War" gets warmer

I've noted before that societies do not descend into civil war all at once.  Rather it is a gradual, uneven process the moves by fits and starts, sometimes reversing, but never long enough to stop its downward spiral.

The past few weeks have given us a number of examples that future generations might call "milestones to war."

• The savage beating of journalist Andy Ngo in broad daylight in full view of the police.  Liberal apologists for the Antifa Stosstruppen are trying to claim that he's a conservative provocateur, but in fact his politics are firmly on the left - he just likes following a good story.
• Facebook's revised policy on death threats, which forbade them - except in cases where they were issued against people the management didn't like.  This illegal policy was almost immediately rescinded, but one has to wonder what kind of idiots signed off on it in the first place.
• The spectacle of CNN/Playboy "Journalist" Brian Karem taunting attendees at a White House event and then challenging Sebastian Gorka to a fight in full view of the press - and then lying about it afterwards.  It wasn't exactly an attack on the Senate floor, but it was close.  Also indicative - mainstream press lied about what happened, choosing an edited version of the tape with Karem's taunting and challenge omitted.
• The growing public knowledge of Jeffrey Epstein's predations, which happened in plain sight of the Ruling Class for years - and the fact that despite his conviction, they continued to party and socialize with him.
• The Democrat Party's full embrace of erasing US borders and it's open preference for non-citizens. 
• The US "National" Women's Soccer Team openly insulting the National Anthem and trampling the flag during one of their tasteless celebrations.

I could go on, but the sum total of each of these events is to destroy the social contract that holds the nation together.  If citizenship is meaningless and the "national team" feels it can insult the nation's symbols with impunity, what's left?

It's clear that the Democrats have no grand design or carefully crafted plan once they gain control, just a series of anti-American impulses to destroy our institutions.  When 50 million Central Americans enter the country, they have no idea how they will govern it and this doesn't seem to bother them.

It's interesting to see how much this insanity is radicalizing the center.  I've watched with great interest as otherwise moderate or non-political entities and publications have changed their tone. 

Sohrab Amadi's famous essay has struck a nerve and I'm noticing a change in both attitude and behavior among Kurt Schlichter's "normals."  No longer is there an easy-going sense that this will all blow over, or that cooler heads on the left will rein in the crazies.  Instead there is a defiance, a stridency on the part of the center that wasn't there a year ago.

It comes from a simple realization:  They really do hate us.

I don't think the left is capable of understanding where this will go, but it won't be pleasant for anyone.

In Defense of Marianne Williamson

A lot of conservatives are picking apart the aphorisms of Democrat presidential hopeful Marianne Williamson and though I initially joined in the laughter, I've since come to conclude that it's poor form.

Whether you like self-help gurus or not, a lot of what she says is good to hear and worth repeating.

It's interesting that the Catholic Conservatives on Twitter are frantically retweeting many of her items about God and spirituality (particularly forgiveness) and they seem to be doing it in an unironic way, adding positive commentary.

Of course, there's also a little fun going on here, since I'm sure she considers traditionalist right-to-lifers to be her mortal...adversaries, or something.  Maybe enemies.  She doesn't like Trump, that's for sure.

At any rate, her qualities as a motivator may be debatable but her qualifications for executive power are not.  There is no indication that her skillset is suitable to navigate the twisted Machiavellian world of international relations. 

The funny thing is I think Trump could charm the socks off her.  A debate between them would simply be him admitting that all the things she thinks are correct and that he too wants a better world. 

Contra the Quisling Never Trumpers, one of the things that attracts evangelical and other Christians to Trump is his lack of pretension regarding morality.  He doesn't judge and doesn't claim to be holier than anyone else.  He seems genuinely in awe of observant religious people.

He's also the first president in decades to take the Right to Life movement seriously and speak openly about what abortion is in practical terms.  He's taken concrete action as well to defend religious freedoms, which cannot be overlooked.

We may admire saints, but they do not always make the best practical leaders.  Gandhi was a very spiritual man (albeit with a number of seldom-discussed oddities) but in terms of politics, he was a disaster and the party he led became a sink of crony corruption.

A less spiritually enlightened man might have served India (and Pakistan and Bangladesh) much better.

The Conservative Counter-Reformation

The intra-conservative debate over David French-ism has abated.  If anything, the anti-French-ist forces are building newer and more powerful arguments to assert their position.

These are moving beyond the realm of tactics and into the weeds of the entire philosophical basis of conservatism and the fundamental weakness at the core of classical liberalism.

In a nutshell, liberalism has failed because it places individual autonomy at the highest plane, making moral considerations secondary at best.

Thus, David French's claim that "sincere religious belief" has to be respect must necessarily collapse when said religion hurts someone else's feelings.  Their "right" to be free of offense supersedes someone else's "right to hate."

Indeed, we're seeing this argument already being deployed by the left.  Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel recently said that religious beliefs cannot justify "hate," and of course she's the one who gets to decide which beliefs are acceptable.

In a sense, this debate somewhat mirrors the old Catholic vs Protestant split, with non-conformists being deeply distrustful of state power and therefore blind to discrimination by non-state actors.

Senator Josh Hawley's bill requiring online platforms to be certified as non-discriminatory as a condition for legal immunity from defamation lawsuits is a great example of this split.  The French-ist wing claims that the left will abuse this regulatory authority should they gain power - ignoring that the left already has de facto power over the marketplace.

The left can also (and has) twisted its regulatory power without provocation, so they don't require a precedent in order to abuse their authority.

It is an open question on how much of this debate is really corporate shills earning paychecks to defend their sugar daddies.  Jonah Goldberg in particular seems to argue almost entirely from a dishonest position and seems to spend his time picking - and losing - Twitter fights with actual conservatives. 

Tellingly, he's the first to make personal attacks and when they are reciprocated, runs around asking for backup against his target.  Amusingly, the reinforcements almost always accrue to whoever he's fighting.

The social conservative rebellion

Sohrab Ahmari’s frontal assault on David French seems to have been the spark that lit the powderkeg.  The pile-on from the right is reaching epic proportions.

The newly rebooted Human Events has taken up the sword, hacking away at David French-ism in general and National Review in particular.

Over at American Greatness, Julie Kelly came flying off the top rope to pin French to the mat, while her colleague Matthew Boose metaphorically swatted the stunned Pharisee with a folding chair when he tried to get up.

The response of French and his acolytes is both predictable and revealing.

Naturally, French doubled-down on his virtue, and his followers were quick to remind everyone of the things they already knew (because he keeps bringing it up) about his family life and military service.  This was the predictable part.

What was revealing was that French also began playing the “beware a Christian theocracy” card, which is a staple of the liberal left, even as it makes nuns pay for birth control and persecutes Christian bakers and florists.

Since French was making a liberal argument, naturally the liberals have applauded and the usual suspects who normally bash National Review and French are now portraying them as the “good guys” and the “reasonable” wing of the conservative movement.

So far, this is little more than a catfight among the swamp creatures who dwell inside the beltway, but out in the hinterland, something else happened.

For the first time I can recall, a Catholic bishop has formally denied Holy Communion to nominally Catholic politicians for their voting record.

Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield put out a public statement that the President of the Illinois Senate and the state Speaker of the House (both Democrats, naturally) were barred from Communion because of their support for legislation legalizing virtually all abortion up to the moment of birth.  The Bishop also included any other nominal Catholic politicians in his diocese who voted for the vile measures.

This hard line against “cafeteria Catholics” is a long time coming and demonstrates that the frustration of Ahmari is not unique.  For decades Catholics have tolerated politicians who profess to share their faith and then vote to undermine and persecute it at every opportunity.

All of these events make clear that social conservatives are tired of being used by the corporatist liberals who run Conservatism, Inc. 

For decades the “social liberal but fiscal conservative” recipe has been pitched as the key to a successful GOP majority.  It has failed utterly.

I think a crucial step in cracking this coalition was the failure of the GOP leadership to defund Planned Parenthood when Republicans controlled both branches of Congress and the presidency.  This was an easy thing to do, and – given the horrible news that Planned Parenthood made money selling off baby parts – utterly defensible.

But instead Congress could only rouse itself for corporate tax cuts.  Actually keeping its pledge to the Right to Life movement was too much to ask.

These people may have claimed to support conservative positions, but they were always liberals at heart.

How else to explain their sudden eagerness to hop in board the gay marriage bandwagon?  It’s telling that Ahmari’s example of degeneracy (a drag queen reading to young children) draw such a vehement defense from French, who insisted that really, there was nothing to be done to stop it other than ask nicely.

I’ve been using the phrase Quisling Never Trumper for a while now, but it’s clear the treason goes well beyond the advent of the Trumpening.  These people kept losing not because they were too principled to fight, but because they secretly internalized all of the lies of the left.

They were always liberals.

And now they've been revealed.  The super-religiousity was a blind to dupe their fellow Christians into confusing "nice" with "faith."

For example, early on, Ahmari was asked if he "loved his enemies" in regards to the liberal left.

You see, if he didn't, he was a hypocrite and UnChristian.

Note that no one asks David French if he loves Donald Trump.  Mr. Super-Christian can dump hate on him all day long and that's okay because it's righteous, liberal hate.

At any rate, the curtain has now been pulled aside and social conservatives are acting accordingly.

Right on cue: Salesforce moves against firearms retailers

The core problem with the David French Quisling Never Turmpers is that they refuse to acknowledge what is going on:  we are in a war.  It is not a war we wanted, but is a war we must fight and win.

Trying to adhere to the old rules and hope that by presenting an example of civility and decorum we will motivate our enemies to a higher morality is a path to sure defeat.

A cynic might observe that the David French faction is fine with that.  They already serve as the controlled opposition and will have to do so indefinitely.

But those who actually take their rights and beliefs seriously cannot accept such a state of dependent servitude.

Salesforce's move against gun retailers is the latest example.  In a truly free marketplace, Salesforces' decision to bar its clients from selling certain items would cause it to look marketshare.  Other competitors would move in and their revenue would suffer.

But we no longer have a free marketplace.  In each tech sector, monopolists or oligarchs openly band together to crush the competition and limit customer choice.

And the David French faction praises them for this.  Government intervention would be the cure that is worse than the disease to these useless, self-righteous tools.

But that is a proper exercise of government.  These are unelected and increasingly unaccountable private entities that use their market power to restrict trade and limit the civil rights of others.  

Now one might ponder the irony of the left deciding that government by vulture capitalists is now suddenly a good thing, but the left has never let consistency or morality get in the way of what it wants.

The David Frenchists would have us believe that to effectively fight back with the tools at our disposal - specifically government regulation and anti-trust actions - would make us no better than our enemies.

This is of course utterly wrong - those laws are in place for precisely this purpose.  Their use is essential to maintaining the liberty that the David Frenchists insist is their lodestar.

What makes this even more hilarious is that French was once a soldier (a fact he reminds us of all the time) and as such, he should be fine with the concept of returning incoming fire.  Of course he didn't serve in a combat arm - in fact his job with to nitpick the soldiers doing the actual fighting.   It's interesting that Kurt Schlichter, who was a real no-kidding line officer - is on the opposite side of this issue with French.  That's because French knows nothing about how to win a war, only a court case where the rules are strictly enforced for both sides.

Schlichter knows that the battlefield isn't a courtroom, and the enemy will constantly create new weapons and tactics.  Battles aren't supposed to be fair.  In fact, the more lop-sided they are (for your side) the better.

The left is fully exploiting this.  They are changing the rules on the fly and refuse to accept that any ground is neutral.  People who believe the personal is political have no regard for anything.  Appealing to the humanity of ghouls who demand the "right" to kill children at the moment of birth and happily call for the murder of high school students wearing red hats cannot be reasoned with or placated.  

They aren't even interested in converts, they want their enemies destroyed.

This is why David Frenchism must be declared anathema.  It is a Fifth Column, sapping our resources and will to resist.

 

More Christian push-back against Quisling Never Trump theology

A couple of weeks ago I mentioned that actual conservatives are getting tired of the useless preening of the Quisling Never Trumper like David French.

The title says it all:  Against David French-ism.

I have to say that the piece is actually too gentle.  It gives French far too much credit for good intentions and the author bends over backwards to say nice things about him.  Naturally French's allies aren't nearly as polite, which is funny since they're always the ones tut-tutting about "civility."

The fact of the matter is that we are engaged in a war not just of ideas, but also over practical things, like whether babies will continue to murdered wholesale for fun and profit.

Hitherto, the left has used every tool at hand, fair or fowl, but social conservatives have handcuffed themselves, insisting that virtue alone will win the day.

It hasn't.

The David French's of the world are content with an unrelenting tale of defeat because they believe that their hands are clean.  The deaths of 60 million infants and the impending mutilation and sterilization of countless confused adolescents is fine with them so long as their hands are "clean."

But they aren't.  The problem with Protestant theology is that it focuses too much on intention and not enough on execution.  When Catholics seek absolution, they do it not just for what they have done, but also for the things they have failed to do.

David French is personally moral.  His values are impeccable.  Military service, adopting children - surely he is one who has earned salvation.  He didn't vote for the awful Trump, nor did he vote for Hillary - therefore he carries no guilt.  

But it is not enough to stand aside and claim non-involvement.  The world is a flawed, messy place and sometimes people of conviction have to put their souls at risk - to do things less than optimal - to prevent a greater evil.  This requires judgement, conviction and especially humility.  One's garment will no longer be spotless, but the cause of right and good sometimes requires a little dirt.

One would think that as a soldier, French would understand this.  But French wasn't a trigger-puller, in fact his job was to prosecute trigger-pullers for their transgressions.  His military service was abstract and antiseptic.  He was only concerned with the law, and his task was to determine the guilt of others.  He was never called on to act in the heat of battle.

I think this explains why he thinks one can wage a war and also remain as pure and clean as the wind-driven snow.

Those of us who live in the ranks and serve on the firing line of the culture war know otherwise.

 

 

The progressive pharisees of National Review

It’s pretty well established that much of the left substitutes politics for religion.  What they lack in faith they make up for in ideology, which is why someone who disagrees with them on an issue is not merely wrong but objectively evil.

A leftist who urges a policy change flirts with heresy.

All of this has been true for a long time.

What is not as well known is that a certain brand of conservative has likewise substituted religion for politics.  Just as leftists see policy preferences as a path of secular salvation, these conservatives see religious preferences as a path of policy guidance – and people who disagree are (as in the above example) not merely wrong but objectively evil.

Similarly, those on their own side who don’t share their beliefs are heretics to be chastised and burned, not reasoned with.

I was too busy last week to write about this, but National Review-sponsored Quisling Never Trumper David French (and his wife) have been on a roll lately, denouncing their nominal political allies and co-religionists for supporting Donald Trump instead of (wait for it) Mitt Romney, that paragon of defeatist virtue.

The increasingly indispensable American Greatness has an excellent summary and rejoinder to French and his fellow Calvinist scolds (no really, French has used John Calvin as his Twitter avatar – no pretension there!) by Chris Buskirk.  It’s very much worth a read, but Buskirk misses the essential basis for French’s argument, which is that actual results are immaterial, what is important is the purity of one’s beliefs.

This is the mirror image of the left’s obsession with virtue-signaling.  For example, the left doesn’t care if gun control works, it is a moral imperative – or as they like to say: “Who we are.”

The same goes for open borders, tolerating violence (and excrement) on the street, and dozens of other policies that harm the people they are supposed to save.

Again, this has long been known, but it’s not until now that I realized why the Quisling Never Trumpers are equally indifferent to the suffering of the people they are supposed to be helping.  This is why Kevin Williamson’s infamous response to rural decline was to tell people to learn to code, or give up their good-paying manufacturing or mining job to be a greeter at Wal Mart.

Williamson’s callousness is essential to his moral conception of himself because virtue-signaling is all that matters.  Just like Hillary, the Never Trumpers regard the working classes as “deplorable,” whose individual well-being is less important than their salvation through suffering.

Another similarity between the FredoCons and their erstwhile enemies is their use of identity politics. 

Just as a progressive has to list all their qualifiers (gay, trans, ethnic, sexual) before speaking, David French likes to remind everyone that he’s an “Iraq War veteran” and that one of his three children was adopted.

Frankly, I think it’s pretty low to run around bragging about an adopted child as if it’s a trophy or resume item.  I’ve also noted many times that French was no Audie Murphy – he served as a lawyer, not an actual soldier.  (Indeed, JAG officers don’t even have to go through basic training.)

Now a cynic might also note that like his progressive counterparts, French figures he personally will never suffer hardship for his policies.  That’s for the impure.

One might further note that someone is paying French and his co-religionists a lot of money to hector their erstwhile allies.  Again, like progressivism it is a grift, but one that makes the recipients feel good about themselves.

Certainly Jonah Goldberg has been banging this drum for three years, demanding that people name Trump’s virtues and then ignoring the answers.  There’s a point where this repetition crosses the line from willfully obtuse to simply cashing a paycheck for hectoring religious people.

Perhaps the biggest indictment I can levy against these would-be pharisees is the fact that for all their moral sermonizing, they’re not only comfortable with putting far worse sinners in charge, but have zero problem spreading lies and slanders of their own in pursuit of the cause.

None of these people hesitated at all to spread the obviously fake dossier and they spent years passing taking hits from the same RUSSIA conspiracy bong that the Democrats were hitting so heavily.

The Rule of Law returns to Massachusetts

It's fascinating to see how our political parties are returning to their historical roots.

Trump's GOP is once again in favor of raising the wages of American workers and protecting American industry.  This goes back to the foundation of the party.  When Quisling Never Trumpers whine about Trump being unprecedented, they're lying.  What was unprecedented was the GOP deciding to support endless immigration and de-industrialization.

Meanwhile, the Democrats are once again embracing nullification as a response to federal laws they don't like.  The most egregious case is the Massachusetts state judge who actually smuggled a federal fugitive out of her court room to avoid his arrest by a waiting federal agent.

Naturally, the usual suspects (ACLU, other state officials) are outraged that a JUDGE is being held accountable for violating federal law.  What is the world coming to!  Judges are supposed to be part of the aristocracy and therefore immune from legal consequences for their actions.

This article has a link to the indictment, which spells out just how duplicitous the judge and her court officers were.  They even went to the extreme of shutting off the court recording camera so they could hatch their criminal conspiracy in privacy.

I've seen some deluded souls argue that helping a repeat offender escape is somehow like helping Anne Frank escape the Nazis.

Uh, no.

In the first case, they guy had already been deported twice.  For the analogy to hold, the Frank family would have had to repeatedly invade Nazi-occupied territory - the exact opposite of what is happening here.

The modern left has convinced itself that the purity of their intentions should shield them from any negative consequences of their actions.

Not only is this morally abhorrent, in practice it will destroy civilization because it breaks the crucial link between cause and effect.

Happily, there are still a few adults who understand this.  Strange that for all the venom directed at Trump, he's the most adult person in Washington.

Benedict speaks and Notre Dame burns

Over the weekend, word came out that Emeritus Pope Benedict XVI had prepared a 6,000 word essay examining the moral basis for the Catholic Church's sex scandals.

Benedict resigned from the papacy in 2013 and hitherto had remained silent, but the recent revelations - and Pope Francis' bumbling efforts to respond - clearly touched his conscience.

Yesterday we all watched in horror as Notre Dame cathedral in Paris caught fire and burned with incredible ferocity.  While damage assessments are still in progress, it appears that the overall structure remains sound and that most - if not all - of its priceless relics and artifacts survived.

That both of these events would coincide with Holy Week would seem to be no accident.  The crisis within the Church is in many ways analogous to a fire started through carelessness that eventually consumes the structure under repair.

Fire can destroy, but it can also warm and inspire.  Benedict clearly believes that the Church will go on, and this this will be yet another example of how the Church has gone from prosperity to complacency, to decadence and crisis - and then into a period of renewal.

Similarly, it's possible that the danger presented to Notre Dame will help spur the French people and Christians across Europe to reconsider the danger to their illustrious heritage.  Are people really willing to see all that they have known, all that was given to them, wiped out in a consuming fire?  

Much of the talk in France centers on the cathedral's historical and artistic merit, but perhaps people will also consider the faith that went into building it - and can be renewed within it once more.

Traditionalists in the United Methodist Church hold firm

This story is a couple of weeks old, but bears further examination.

For the first time, the traditionalists in a mainline Protestant denomination have forced a halt to the watering down of their theology and a total embrace of political correctness.

The Atlantic describing this as "conservatives taking back the church," which appears to be yet another variation on the old "conservatives pounce!" but in fact all that happened is that the majority of delegates refused to cave in to their liberal win.

It wasn't a counterattack, just a spirited defense, but that now counts as aggression.

The article notes that a schism is still likely, but instead of traditionalists pulling out, it will likely be the progressives who leave.  They are so invested in their theology of sexual license that there can be no compromise.

A decisive factor in the vote was the unwillingness of traditional congregations outside the US to embrace dressing up Western decadence and depravity as Christian virtue.  Like many churches, the United Methodists have been sending missionaries around the world for a long time.  Those missions have born fruit and while the American core is falling into heresy, the periphery remains true to their doctrine.

A similar dynamic is at work in the Anglican communion.  The Church of England has gone all-in on progressivism, even coming up with liturgies to feed the delusions of the mentally ill.  The other provinces, however, are not willing to accommodate this and other depravities.  A split there seems inevitable.

The core problem is that progressivism makes for a lousy religion.  It is constantly evolving and changing based on political need and cultural impulse.  The compulsion to signal virtue by coming up with ever-newer fads is anathema to maintaining a timeless and eternal way of describing the universe.

Churches are supposed to provide rules for a lifetime - and beyond.  Progressivism can't even go a decade without repudiating core beliefs in favor of newer ones that are ever more "woke."

As I said, this isn't a counterattack so much as a desperate defense that succeeded after years of assault.  The next challenge will be to see how the UMC enforces its doctrine.  To this point, it hasn't, which is why there are a number of homosexual clergy who are quite happy to perform unauthorized ceremonies - and to do this with impunity.

The Methodists have halted the flooding on their ship.  What now remains to be seen is whether they can pump out all the water that's already aboard.